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Neighborhood Update

SPECIAL

UPDATE
WPRA finds Caltrans' SR-710 Draft EIR to be 'grossly inadequate'
Neighbors:

The SR-710 North Study Draft Environmental Impact Report / Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) misrepresents data in favor of the tunnel alternative and fails to address substantial environmental and community impacts. These and other findings were delivered to Caltrans on August 5 as part of the West Pasadena Residents' Association's formal comments on the report.

"After careful analysis, it is clear that the SR-710 Draft EIR/EIS is grossly inadequate and should not be accepted," said Geoffrey Baum, president of the West Pasadena Residents' Association (WPRA).

This week, the South Coast Air Quality Management District released a letter saying the Draft EIR/EIS failed to estimate emissions of carbon monoxide and that the tunnel would raise the risk of cancer to unacceptable levels.

The WPRA assembled a team of more than two dozen experts to review Caltrans' massive 26,000+ page report (more than 50,000 with appendices). Scientists, environmentalists, attorneys, university professors, engineers, planners, policy experts, transportation experts, and historic preservation activists from USC, NASA, the EPA and other institutions worked for 5 months to draft the WPRA'S 430+ page comment document. Significant inadequacies were found in all Draft EIR/EIS sections reviewed, including for air quality and health, noise, growth, land use, community impacts, construction impacts, traffic, transportation, hydrology, water quality, geology, energy, and more. Significant findings are summarized in the WPRA cover letter to Caltrans and specific findings for each subject area are provided in the full WPRA report.

The team found that, from its inception, the SR-710 Study environmental process has been improperly conducted in a manner to justify and sustain a decision already made: the freeway tunnel as the preferred alternative. That bias continues in the Draft EIR/EIS with a distorted project definition, an improper selection of the Study Area boundaries and alternatives, a biased bundling of options, the deferral or complete failure to address large environmental impacts, and the selective presentation and manipulation of data.

The SR-710 Analysis of the Alternatives is also grossly deficient. For example, the SR-710 Study fails to consider a multi-mode alternative (e.g. a combination of light rail, bus transit, street network improvements, etc.), despite numerous community inputs to do so during the scoping process. This is egregious particularly in light of the 1999 injunction prohibiting a 710 surface freeway extension due to Caltrans' failure to consider a multi-mode alternative.

In addition, the alternative selection criteria only considered north-south corridors rather than the efficiency of the transportation network as a whole. The Glendale region - a primary source of the 710 tunnel traffic according the Metro - is excluded from the Study Area; consequently, Glendale/Burbank options were not considered. Options that provide meaningful Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) connectivity and broader area service were also ignored. The Transportation System Management/Transportation Demand Management (TSM/TDM) alternative fails to address safety and connectivity issues associated with the '210 stub' in Pasadena and the termination of the 710 freeway in El Sereno.

Remnants of historic 710 extension aspirations, these transportation and safety nightmares have divided and plagued these communities for more than a half century. Moreover, the Draft EIR/EIS proposes several tunnel alternative options that are not credible. This includes the 'no truck' option, which is not enforceable either in the near term or future, and the single tunnel option, which is not reasonable because it exceeds margins of safety and passes unacceptable fire and accident risks onto tunnel users.

The Draft EIR/EIS environmental impact assessment is also grossly flawed. It lacks sufficient information to substantiate many claims, including those of 'no significant impact', and defers decisions and analyses required for a credible and dispassionate environmental impact evaluation.

The WPRA has asked Caltrans to correct the Draft EIR/EIS deficiencies and that a new SR-710 Draft EIR/EIS report be circulated.